


(we were) destined to explode

by sweetlyinfinite



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Cheating, Heavy Angst, M/M, and im also sorry for writing this damn thing, im super duper sorry about the italics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetlyinfinite/pseuds/sweetlyinfinite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Really though, he isn't lucky. Not at all.</p><p>Because Zayn, Zayn, Zayn Malik has been italicised and bolded and highlighted in brightness his whole life and Liam had sunk behind the black crossed out line in the middle of his name when he was 9 and was called fat the first time and he's continued to hide behind it even though he's no longer overweight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(we were) destined to explode

**Author's Note:**

> listen to any sad songs that you can because sad songs intensify this so much i nearly broke down reading this over. if you have no sad songs search the tag 'sad' on 8tracks and find a playlist that works for you and with the summary, then come back and read this. pretty please.
> 
> thank you to anyone who reads this, and much love to anyone that comments or leaves kudos. thank you for being beautiful.
> 
> (also, title taken from Time Bomb by All Time Low because that song is lovely and one of my favourites)

 

Liam is lucky, was lucky, hasn’t ever really _been_ lucky but just once he was, is. He isn't sure on the tense.

(His luck came on the 2nd of August a year and a few months ago. He was grocery shopping, well not grocery shopping so much as buying junk food for Niall, his roomie on the uni campus.

He’s trying to decide whether or not Niall would appreciate sour worms or gummy bears being added to the basket full of shit when it happens.

There’s a voice next to him, in his ear, slow and delicious. “Gummy bears.”

Liam jumps and turns and it’s _Zayn Malik_ (Zayn Malik who everyone knows, the art major with this _jaw_ and these _cheekbones_ and even the stretcher in his left ear). Liam breathes, tries to keep his pulse steady, and cracks a smile. “Pardon?”

Zayn looks gorgeous in person, looks like a model or a prince that has so many servants he never has to do anything but yell at them. Zayn smiles, eyes scrunching up into little slits of happiness and teeth showing like a baby lion, and he’s only a breath away. “Get gummy bears, not sour worms. Those are shit.”

Liam nods.

Then Zayn moves even closer, less than a breath away, less than a heartbeat away. He pushes his lips against the shell of Liam’s ear which is turning pink and mumbles, “Come by my place tonight, yeah?”

And Liam has no _fucking_ clue where Zayn’s ‘place’ is but it has to be on campus somewhere. He swallows back a resounding yes in favour of an exhaled (and sort of breathless), “Okay.”

Zayn presses a kiss to the space behind Liam's ear and then he’s grinning as he pulls away and he winks. “See you, Liam.”

And there had been something about his luck that he didn’t ruin it by questioning how Zayn knew his name, how he said it like it should be italicised.

 

That night Liam, with the help of Niall (who happily ate gummy bears as he explained that he knew everyone and everything), made it to Zayn's which was only a few minutes’ walk away. They did nothing but talk about comics and watch dumb movies, and then right at the end of the night when it was leaning into morning Zayn's eyes glaze over and he leans forward. He licks into Liam’s mouth with a tenderness that surprises them both and then Zayn says, “You’re beautiful, Liam. Perfect.”)

That’s where Liam’s luck began, and it continues because so far he’s been lucky enough to keep Zayn. Because Zayn isn't just Zayn; he’s _Zayn Malik_ , yeah? And people like Liam whose name isn't said in italics (except for maybe when the ‘ _Liam’s_ with _Zayn Malik_? Liam _Payne_?’ circled around) don’t get to be with people whose names are, and sometimes even said with **bold** too.

Really though, he isn't lucky. Not at all.

Because Zayn, _Zayn_ , **_Zayn Malik_** has been italicised and bolded and highlighted in brightness his whole life and Liam had sunk behind the black crossed out line in the middle of his name when he was 9 and was called fat the first time and he’s continued to hide behind it even though he’s no longer overweight.

 

 

His name falls from the page completely, erased with a few simple taps, when he hears, “ _Zayn_ ,” panted from behind the door to Zayn’s room. Zayn shares his room with two boys that are so on and off you can't really call them boyfriends. They're always shouting and when they're not they're snogging.

Liam stops his hand on the door knob and the smile on his face is frozen like the block of ice he choked on the week prior when drinking ice tea. They drop, then, together, so his face is frowning and his hand is hanging limply by his side.

He leans forward, presses his ear to the thin wooden door, hears, “Oh fuck, Zayn. Zayn you’re so good. Fuck, how does Liam take you, you’re huge.”

And then Zayn, finally, says, “ Fuck off.”

So Harry moans, exactly like a pornstar. Liam’s first thought is that he knows he can't compete with sounds like that.

“Shit, Harry, god. You’re beautiful like this, all splayed and wrecked for me.”

Which. Well; that’s exactly what Zayn said to Liam their first time.

Liam inhales in the quietest way, voice breaking halfway through. The breath stays too full in his lungs, swimming and wanting to burst free. Liam doesn’t do anything until he starts to feel faint, then he exhales and scrunches his eyes up to stop anything from falling out, from leaking out of the sides. He waits until there’s another breath going into his lungs before he shoves his shirt into his mouth and screams.

 

Later, later when Liam is in his bed and Niall is playing an app called Band Stars on his phone, there’s a knock on the door.

Niall’s too wrapped up in training Cass to mix even better, the soft light casting a shadow of his head on the wall behind him, to even notice the knock. Liam knows who it might be and he doesn’t move from the warmth and security his bed supplies in the way the person knocking used to.

The thing is, Zayn has his own key and sometimes this happens, sometimes both boys are asleep and Zayn slips in and Liam wakes up with an arm resting on his hipbone and stretched over his stomach and a hand near his armpit.

So Zayn unlocks the door and shuffles in. He locks the door behind him and Niall looks up as it shuts. He turns off his phone so he can at least give the pretence of sleep while the boyfriends get comfortable and kiss and shit. (Niall thinks he’s great.)

Liam keeps his breathing even and Zayn tugs off his track pants and his shirt. He can't help the small stutter as Zayn lifts the duvet and snuggles under and nudges his nose into Liam’s back.

“Hi,” Zayn murmurs, the word ghosting across the breadth of Liam’s skin and causing an eruption of gooseflesh along his arms.

Liam blinks in the darkness and his eyes are madly adjusting to make out the shape of the curtains which conceal the moon and the stars and the rest of the universe, so it’s only him and Zayn. “You smell like Harry,” he comments lightly, sort of like a hello but an accusation he doesn’t need confirmed. Then he holds his breath.

Zayn doesn’t freeze or tense or anything, at all. Nothing. He's smooth, like Liam wishes his skin was as a preteen, as he says, “I kipped in his bed before coming here. His pillows are better,” and that’s what Liam gets. That’s all Liam gets, not _oh yeah we fucked haha sorry,_ just a fucking nap.

“Okay.”

There’s a few minutes of quiet. Niall tries not to inhale. Liam doesn’t.

“Love you, Li.”

Liam swallows anything from coming out of his mouth and pretends he fell asleep. Zayn only sighs and nips Liam’s skin before moving his face to rest near the base of Liam’s neck, his nose brushing against the tattoo of Liam’s name. ~~~~

~~liam james payne~~ is the tattoo. Liam had it done when he was 17 and still feels the same way 4 years later.

 

 

In the morning Zayn isn't there anymore. In his place is a note.

_Babe, really sorry I had to go but Haz needed help finished an assignment due this morning_

_See you for lunch?—Zayn xx :)_

Liam chokes on spit and throws the note in the bin.

 

He sees Zayn for lunch. Of course he does. They get pizza, chat about weekend plans with greasy fingers and Liam forgets.

Well, he doesn’t forget; he’s not some fucking hopeless old lady who can't remember anything but what she had for breakfast that morning. Liam simply chooses, _selects_ , to forget.

He tells himself he was being silly, had just heard Zayn wrong through the door. That Harry was too truthful to Louis to ever cheat, that Zayn would never do something so terrible. Not to Liam, anyway.

(Liam feels even more like ~~Liam~~ as he repeats this over in his head.)

In the end, somewhere deep inside his head, his brain is rolling its eyes at him and saying, “He fucked another boy, Liam. Don’t be painfully _daft_.”

The voice sounds like his first boyfriend, sneering meanly but still managing to be the most gorgeous thing he’d known at the time, which is fitting because he’d cheated on Liam too.

Liam ignores it, the voice, because that he even has _Zayn Malik_ is incredible and that he gets to have the entirety of Zayn makes him dreadfully lucky.

 

 

They go out clubbing. They being Zayn and Liam and a whole fucking lot of Zayn’s artsy, indie friends.

Some of them look like they think they're too cool to be at a club and the only reason they’re here is because Zayn invited them. Some of them look like they're thanking Jesus that this opportunity has arrived because all they ever wanted was to get close and personal with Zayn, to dance in front of him and let him take them somewhere new.

There's a girl though, a girl who’s smirking heavily in the shortest black dress Liam’s ever seen. There are flowers laced around her waist like a belt, another flower tucked behind her ear where Zayn pushed it after grabbing it from the side of the road on their way there.

Her name’s Astrid. Astrid is beautiful, gorgeous, everything Liam would wish he was if he were the opposite gender, everything Liam would wish he could have if he was into the opposite gender. Everything Zayn can admire.

Zayn buys the group drinks, many drinks, blue and red and yellow and pink. He buys them vodka and tequila and beer and rum and whatever else they want, because he’s _Zayn Malik_ and his parents have a lot of money, a lot of money for their son to spend. Zayn buys Astrid the fruitiest drink he can't think of and smirks along with her when he hands the drink over.

After he’s taken a few shots, Liam moves to the dance floor. Zayn’s friends are soon lost behind him, Zayn and Astrid lost to the crowd of people that welcome Liam with grabby hands and large, lazy grins.

Liam squeezes past until he finds a place he wants to dance, the place near a boy that’s a bit taller than him and has the most gorgeous eyes, a dark blue flecked with pieces of gold, a little like the ocean and grains of sand.

The guy smiles, big and confident, and he says (shouts), “Hey!”

Liam nods and smiles back, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead he pushes forward, so their chests are pressed against each other’s and Liam’s mouth catches the taller boy’s lips. He threads his hands in his hair and kisses, deep and insistent, and the boy responds immediately. Liam doesn’t know his know and that makes it even better, the mystery, the heat, the closeness, the _urgency_. The not being anything but Liam.

The boy takes control of the kiss, kisses really, by putting his hands on Liam’s arse and Liam finds the boy’s hands are big enough to cover each cheek and that makes Liam rock his hips up a little. The boy squeezes and Liam gasps into his mouth.

Liam moves one hand to rest on the boy’s shoulder, the other still tugging at the dirty blonde strands. He’d always considered himself tall, or at least of average height, but this boy has the longest legs and Liam has to tilt his head up.

Then the boy is pulling away, moving his hands off and leaning to whisper in Liam’s ear, “Bathroom?”

Liam would gulp or something, but he’s ready. He wants to go to the bathroom and get fucked by a stranger with Zayn probably fucking Astrid in the next stall.

The furthest they get is Liam on the bench next to the sinks, with Liam’s legs wrapped around this boy’s waist and the boy between Liam’s thighs and them stuttering their hips forward.

That’s as far as they get because the boy’s phone rings in his back pocket and he comes right then and there. He blushes and Liam can't do anything as the boy answers his phone.

“Thank you for answering. Look I know it was wrong of me to run out but you said you didn’t want kids and we’ve been together for over three years!”

Liam hears this from the other end of the line. The boy, man maybe now that Liam can see him properly and not under the stupid fucking pulsing lights, blushes deeper and pulls the phone away from his ear to say to Liam, “Sorry. I’m so sorry.”

His pants are beginning to stain and he rushes from the bathroom, talking to the person on the phone.

Liam’s sweaty skin is beginning to cool, his cock softening in his pants without any release. He hasn’t even properly cheated and yet someone else’s saliva stains his skin and he feels awful. If this is how Liam feels when he didn’t do much but kiss, how can Zayn handle fucking someone else then coming and seeing Liam right after?

He thinks of the voice on the other end of the line that had said something about three years and kids. He realises he’s just helped someone else cheat.

Liam feels sick, in the dirty bathroom of a club, so he gags in the toilet and is thankful no one else is in there with him. When he leaves the toilets, Liam knows he looks freshly fucked but he takes it in his stride, uses it to pull Zayn from Astrid’s clingy hands and uses Zayn to forget the hands of the boy on his arse.

(Zayn thinks he knows why Liam looks this way but Liam wouldn’t ever cheat, not even if he knew Zayn was sleeping around. The thing is, he’s right; Liam didn’t cheat. He only fucked up a little.)

 

 

Liam notices something. Something he tries and tries and tries not to think about. He thinks about it anyway because what kind of boyfriend would he be if he didn’t notice that Zayn smelt different nearly every time he saw him.

Sometimes Zayn smells like flowers, like he’s just swum through a sea of petals and come out the other side barely human and more like a blossoming bud. Sometimes Zayn smells like chocolate, as though he’d transformed into a marshmallow and jumped into a steaming cup of cocoa and refused to leave until he melted and covered the surface. Sometimes Zayn smells like oranges, simply as though he had washed his hair with citrus shampoo when Liam wasn’t looking. Sometimes Zayn smells just like cigarettes and shaving cream and spice, which Liam knows to be _Zayn Malik_ ’s aroma.

When Zayn smells like Zayn, he smells like lilacs and the overbearing scent of _home_. That smell you get when you first walk into your house, your home, after a long day and you know it’s yours. You know it’s where you belong, where you feel safe and soft and warm. Liam doesn’t know how Zayn manages this, but maybe it’s just that Zayn has become the scent of what Liam considers home.

Mostly, Liam likes when Zayn smells like Liam. He doesn’t smell like that much anymore, which is why Liam begins to notice the plethora of different scents Zayn carries after he’s been away from Liam.

Liam ignores the ones he’s smelt before when he’s passed people to get to his lectures.

 

 

A week later there’s another incident. Again, a bit like how he found out his first boyfriend was fucking other guys.

_A fucking text message._

(His first boyfriend had left his phone on the dining table in Liam’s house when he went to use the bathroom. The phone had vibrated; Liam had looked at the screen as it lit up. He hadn’t been prepared for the message to say, _ditch the twink and come and get high with us? kye’s desperate to get the first seat on ur cock dude_. When his boyfriend came back from the bathroom and read the text, he told Liam it was his mum feeling a bit sick and wanted him home. He had kissed a sweet kiss to Liam’s mouth and left to go get high and let Kye have the first seat on his cock.)

That’s how he found out back when he was a teenager willing to believe in better things than the fucking stars, and that’s how he gets to see Zayn cover for his infidelities again.

They’ve just had sex in Liam’s room, Niall’s out with some girl he saw and decided was rather fit, and Liam knows Zayn’s debating whether or not having a cigarette at this moment would be welcome or make it seem like he’s a twat that only cares for a fuck.

Liam, with the reminder of _Shit, Harry, god_ pulsing in his head, is thankful Zayn doesn’t light one up.

The sex had been fast and amazing and nothing seemed different but, in their haste to get undressed and to get Zayn’s prick in Liam, Zayn’s trousers ended up on Liam’s side. His phone is in the back pocket, and it makes the annoying _sound_ that makes Liam’s skin crawl when Zayn has a text.

Zayn, unknowing and relaxed, says, “Babe, wanna get that for me?”

Liam, unknowing and relaxed, says, “Yeah, Z.”

He leans down to snatch the iPhone from his pocket, reads the message still visible on the screen.

_up for a fuck tnight hazs out w ed_

Liam’s breath stutters. He can't pretend he hasn’t seen this. Fuck. “Zayn?”

He passes over the phone. Zayn reads the message and his eyes widen and then they look at Liam who is trying so hard not to let tears in his eyes.

There are two options for Zayn here. He can either start apologising, apologising like he’s just killed Liam’s mother or like he ran over his cat or maybe like he fucking _cheated_ on him, or he can laugh it off, say it’s a joke that him and Louis do for this exact purpose, Zayn’s done it a couple of times to Harry, but he doesn’t react anymore so they wanted to try Liam.

Zayn, obviously, picks the second option.

And he hasn’t thought about it much because if Liam didn’t know then he would feel like an absolute fool. Or maybe Zayn has thought about it.

Liam still feels like a fool. Does Zayn really think he’s dumb enough to fall for that shit? And then, also, there’s the fact that this is Louis texting Zayn so that means Zayn’s sleeping with both of his roomies. Who are dating each other. Liam wonders if they know, but then thinks not because the text says Harry’s out when Zayn will be fucking Louis.

He doesn’t waste any time thinking about whether or not he should tell Louis and Harry because they’ve wasted time, their time and his time with Zayn, so that Zayn can fuck them raw. (Extremely raw, if the way Louis walks sometimes means anything at all.)

Liam laughs, face burning. “You got me, Z.”

And Zayn breathes out with a sad smile. “I know.”

Zayn does not get a quick fuck from Louis that night. Liam doesn’t know if he counts that as a victory or another downfall. He ignores that too, until he’s in the shower where he drops and cries helplessly. Nobody hears, nobody ever fucking _has_ , and maybe his name would be whole if somebody had.

 

 

Zayn loves Liam. He has since he first saw him trip over during their first campus visit, back when both of them were still in high school and Zayn was _Zayn Malik_ more than he was Zayn. Zayn loves Liam but Liam isn't enough, hasn’t ever been enough because just a person, just a single person cannot be enough to fill and fix the scars of his soul, his heart.

Zayn loves Liam and Liam doesn’t deserve this, Zayn, any of it. Liam deserves someone sweet that will adore him and think that he’s enough, sometimes too much. Liam deserves someone who’s name isn't italicised or bolded or underlined, he deserves someone with a name that’s bright and colourful and rewrites Liam’s own next to it in a different sequence of the same colours.

Zayn’s heart beats, of course it does, but it beats for Liam. For Liam, sleepy and brave and _innocent_ in the mornings when he has to be awake at unbearable times for decidedly stupid courses neither knows why Liam chose. Zayn’s heart beats for Liam at night, when he’s wide-eyed and energetic and can't get enough of Zayn, like Zayn can't get enough of Liam but in an entirely different way, like he can't get enough of Zayn because what he has is too large an amount but his hands and eyes and _lips_ are greedy and he keeps taking and Zayn lets him keep _taking_.

Zayn’s heart beats for Liam when he’s missing home, teary-eyed and wishing he had a telescope to look at things beyond their universe. For Liam who can’t sleep, restless and shaky with too many thoughts and promises and words drifting past his eyes in an almost condescending way.

For Liam, purely Liam with bright eyes and large smiles and _faith_ , faith in Zayn.

Zayn wishes Liam was enough, and holds him tighter when Zayn can feel himself slipping into a state of _need_ Liam can't do anything about.

Zayn wishes.

 

 

They have a night in. Niall’s been kicked out and has gone down the hall to find somewhere to sleep for the night.

Liam makes popcorn and holds Zayn's hand, entwines their fingers and apologises when he keeps talking through the movie because he’s seen it before. Zayn laughs sweetly and plants kisses along the underside Liam’s jaw, the only place he can reach from where he’s snuggled up on Liam’s chest.

Liam wants this to be it, wants this for him and Zayn. Wants to be enough for Zayn. But the night is enough. It has to be, because in the morning Zayn has to go, they both have to go to classes and lectures and learn, when all Liam wants to do is relearn the plains and shapes and dips and scars of Zayn’s body.

Liam wants to lick and kiss and skim his lips all over Zayn, to dust kisses over the skin covering Zayn’s heart and hope they soak all the way through.

Liam wants Zayn.

 

 

The third time there is no excuse. Liam walks in on Zayn with his dick pressed flush in…Perrie?

What the fuck?

Liam chokes, stumbles back out of _his own fucking bedroom_ , past the kitchen and the living room and out of his dorm.

He slams the door shut. He’s gasping; still, sharp inhales that burn, _burn_ his throat going in. Liam is crying too, dirty, wet sobs that crack through the wall of _Zayn’s not like that, he wouldn’t_ that he’d built with only thin dry wall around his heart. Liam shatters on the floor outside his room. He shatters into a thousand million billion tiny little pieces of **_~~Liam~~ _** because _Zayn Malik_ is fucking a girl in his _bed_ , the one with fucking _stars_ on the duvet and the fucking _quilt_ his mum made him for uni rucked up at the bottom of the bed.

Fuck.

He gets weird looks from guys walking to their own rooms but Liam is ignored by most. The thing Liam’s thinking about is the fact Zayn hasn’t even come out yet.

Zayn doesn’t come out until Niall storms in, absolutely furious. Niall’s face is red and he’s shouting in Irish and then in English and in either language it’s clear what he’s saying. Zayn, apparently, hadn’t actually heard Liam. He was too wrapped up in Perrie, Perrie who shuffles out before Niall’s finished yelling at Zayn, quickly and blushing like you wouldn’t believe.

She sees Liam on the floor, drops to her knees for a few seconds and there are tears on her face to match Liam’s.

“Li, honey, I had no idea you and Zayn were still dating. He said you weren’t and like, I know this is where you live but he said you and he swapped because Niall was annoying you. Babe, sweetheart, I'm so sorry. So sorry, Liam.”

Liam knows it isn't her fault, but as she stumbles away hiccupping and clutching a jumper of Liam’s Zayn must’ve taken, Liam wishes he could blame it on her.

He can't, he can't because Zayn fucked Harry and Louis and whoever the _fuck_ else and Liam doesn’t really want to search all of the people that Zayn slept with rather than him just so he could place blame on them all, feels like the blame could be parted into eighteenths if he looked enough.

_Who else?_

Liam stops thinking, just for a bit, after he thinks that.

Niall doesn’t stop yelling, not even when his face goes purple. Liam stays in the hall and he can't feel his bum.

Zayn. Well. Zayn is desperate.

Which Liam, in the hall with a numb arse, does not expect.

Except he does. Did. Zayn was always appallingly clingy, always holding and kissing and _marking_ Liam so everybody knew that Zayn was there even when he couldn’t be. Zayn was afraid, not of the dark but what was hiding in it. Zayn was a boy who whimpered during sex, who cried during their third time because _I can’t believe how lucky I am to have you, Liam, and I know it’s fucking early but I love you._ Zayn was insecure and broken and scarred from a childhood of taunting and teasing and _why are you a different colour_.

But really, that’s now all Zayn was, is. He’s more than just his flaws, more than just desperate.

Zayn is _Zayn Malik_ , a prince in near every sense of the word, and despite being clingy he’s also hypocritical and mean and disgusting.

He’s a person that cheats.

When Zayn sees Liam in the hallway, after he’s scampered out of the room with Niall still shouting viscously, Zayn drops to his knees too.

He says one thing, one, _one_ , **_one_** thing. He says, “Liam.”

And Liam, Liam moves his eyes from a stain on the floor Liam knows to be jam from a croissant he once made Zayn for breakfast and was heading to his room to give to him. Liam moves his eyes up, up to Zayn’s and the pieces of Liam chip into nothing, everything, dust that fills Zayn’s mouth as he breathes, waits.

Liam manages to quirk his lips, small and sarcastic and _mean_. “ _Zayn Malik_.”

That’s all Liam says in response, the last letter of the alphabet next to the first next to the second last next to the fourteenth next to a space next to the fifteenth next to the first again next to the twelfth next to the ninth next to the eleventh. Nine letters in total, said with italics and dripping with an unquenchable feeling of _why_.

Zayn gets up. And he walks away.

It’s too quiet, too simple for Liam. Liam had to put up with motherfucking _Zayn Malik_ and he got to adore Zayn and its too fucking **_plain_ ** for Liam to let it end like that.

So he calls out after Zayn, “Try not to be such a whore next time, Z.”

Then Liam can't breathe. Shit. He doesn’t understand why the fucking fuck he just said that, just called the boy he loved, _loves_ , a whore. _Shit._ He just called _Zayn Malik_ a whore. **_Shit_**.

Zayn freezes, much like Liam’s hand did for the first incident on Zayn’s door knob. There are still guys in the hall, milling around and watching. There are some girls there, friends or girlfriends Liam doesn’t care, they're just there. And they're all frozen too.

“Maybe,” Zayn states, slowly and coldly and not turning around like he can’t stand the thought of acknowledging Liam beyond what he has to, “maybe if you kept your fucking mouth _shut_ , maybe if you kept your fucking _legs_ shut, I wouldn’t be such a dirty whore.”

Liam stands up because this is not something to be done sitting hopelessly on the ground. “Excuse me, _Zayn Malik_? Did you just accuse me of being like you? Ready and open for a quick fuck any day of the week?”

Zayn despises being called _Zayn Malik_ more than anything. He chuckles darkly, back still to Liam though Liam can see his muscles moving under the stretch of white fabric. “Li, it isn't me who like to be fucked up the arse. It isn't me who likes to be _held down_ with ropes and handcuffs and fucked from behind. It isn't me who still has bruises like bracelets around my wrists, my ankles. Is it?”

And Zayn turns around and he isn't even far away, just a metre from Liam. He’s smiling, smirking, sneering. Liam can't decide and it reminds him of 10th form and being forced to read ‘Animal Farm’ by George Orwell and the ending of not being able to tell pigs from humans. It reminds him of this because he can't tell Zayn from _Zayn Malik_ anymore.

Liam explodes. He jumps on Zayn; he takes that step, that metre, and shoves Zayn to the floor. Liam straddles his thighs so he can't kick up and roll them over.

They’ve been in this position before, but their lips were sucked red and their cheeks were flushed and their dicks were hard and rutting against each other.

Liam pulls his arm back and he swings and something cracks under his fingers. Zayn groans and Liam had forgotten how easily Zayn could flip them despite being held by Liam’s weight because then Liam’s being punched and punched and punched everywhere, his jaw his nose his cheek his eye his chest his stomach, his heart.

Liam can't breathe and _fuck_ Zayn can hit and Liam pushes him off forcefully and Zayn lands with a heavy thud on the ground. There’s blood gushing from a split in his cheek, blood filling his mouth yet his teeth remain undamaged.

Liam lands a hit on Zayn’s nose, has the disturbing pleasure of feeling that break and begin to bleed purely from his fist before someone fucking finally pulls them apart.

Niall is the one holding Liam back, Matt is the one holding Zayn and there are girls crying into their boyfriends sides. Liam can't give a fuck, he’s bleeding too and his hand is throbbing and this isn't how Liam thought the afternoon would go.

He laughs and Zayn glares, spits blood and saliva onto the ground to create a new stain the same colour, and then Zayn’s gone and the hall is full of commotion and Liam starts to sob again. It hurts his stomach, freshly beat, so he sobs harder. His heart is open again, pumping violently in his chest like a boxer waiting for his opponent to come on stage but Liam’s already fought and he doesn’t know if he lost or if he’s the World Champion at breaking _Zayn Malik_ just as _Zayn Malik_ broke him.

 

 

It’s odd. It is. Zayn got Perrie pregnant and Perrie has an abortion.

Harry and Louis find out Zayn slept with them both and they moved out and away from each other and Zayn. Neither apologises to Liam, but neither have to because Liam thinks that moving away is enough.

Niall can't believe anything. It’s all too fucking much for him. He’s there for Liam, though. The whole time after, he’s there. Niall is great.

Liam finds a list. The list that supplies him with the exact name and date of all the people he’s been cheated on with. He finds it in the back of his underwear drawer. Harry, Louis, Astrid and Perrie are all on that list. Liam is the heading, italicised by Zayn’s handwriting and underlined. It turns out, the blame can be split 24 ways. Zayn not included. Liam doesn’t ever get over _Zayn Malik_ , especially not Zayn. His heart is never whole, or maybe it wasn’t from the beginning. He doesn’t know, can't remember a time where Zayn didn’t fill his being.

And Zayn. _Zayn Malik_. _Zayn Malik_ offs himself, drowns himself in a bathtub full of blood and his body full of pills. Zayn does not. Zayn moves with freshness and he glows, like everything buried under his skin has been burnt away and all that’s left is _good_. He treats Liam like a mistake, and he was. Liam knows he was; a mistake that wasn’t supposed to happen. A word not supposed to be written in simple blue ink, and all that’s left of Liam is a scribble on the page of Zayn’s life and a smudge on the side of his palm where he’d laid his hand flat across the word so as not to see it.

Every time Liam’s name appears in the story of Zayn’s life there’s a line crossed through the middle of the word so that it can be skipped over and onto a different, better word.

Every time Zayn’s name appears in the story of Liam’s life it’s never just Zayn, except maybe once right at the end, it’s always _Zayn Malik_ in some form or another, italicised and bolded and highlighted and underlined and enlarged and a different font with a different colour so the reader can't ignore the boy, the mystery, that lies beyond it.

But at the beginning, before the end, when they were more than just fireworks and rotting fruits, in the story of Zayn’s life, the draft copy before it was scrutinised and edited and wrecked and had unfamiliar strikes in red pen. There was not a single ~~Liam~~.

 

They were all _Liam_.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
